Commentaries on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.
Zigedy highly recommends the Marxist-Leninist website, MLToday.com, where many of his longer articles appear.

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Friday, March 22, 2013

Seventy-five years
ago, Christopher Caudwell’s Studies in a
Dying Culture was published posthumously. Caudwell, a brilliant young
British Communist writer and poet volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic
and was killed in 1937. If Caudwell’s assessment of capitalist culture was
appropriate to the mid-twentieth century, that culture has reached a terminal
phase in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

The artistic and
personal liberties unleashed by the escape from the repressive, conformist
1950s and the energy and optimism accompanying the civil rights and anti-war
movements were methodically and overwhelmingly suffocated by corporate
cooption. Any and every new spring of creative originality—whether it be a new
popular musical form or an original film director—has been damned and channeled
by the monopoly entertainment industry. As a result, cultural products with any
claim to broad popularity are reduced to either formulaic, safe entertainments
or vapid, lifeless expressions of “high” culture.

This is not to demean
the tens of thousands of talented cultural workers who struggle at minimum wage
jobs while studying and exercising their craft for the few willing to step away
from the corporately constructed temples of culture. They labor even more
heroically than their predecessors who were occasionally able to hew some
measure of independence from the grasp of cultural moguls and business
accountants. That is less possible today when only unrestrained vulgarity and
violence or unchallenging distraction and fantasy offer the keys to entering
the cultural big stage.

In an age where the
promise of hip hop has been reduced to a grinding pulse of swagger, violence,
and selfishness and the freedom of independent commercial film predictably
delivers time-released, regular spasms of ultra-violence, nudity, and sex,
relief from the tedium is especially delicious. More and more that relief is
coming from documentary film.

I have in mind two
documentaries that expose the worst and best of the US.

The
Queen of Versailles

The best
documentaries often rise to great heights on sheer dumb luck; the Irish film
makers who, by happenstance, captured close-up the coup against Hugo Chavez and
its aftermath were extraordinary examples of the film gods in action (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised).
Similarly, Lauren Greenfield's 2012 documentary, The Queen of Versailles draws its drama from the impact of the
economic crisis upon one of the richest families in the US. What begins as the
capture of the excesses and embarrassing vulgarity of the nouveau riche
devolves to a tale of blame, self-pity, and neglect, thanks to the impact of
the unforeseen crisis.

On the way up, a
fortune built around the hustle and shrewd entrapment of the time-share
industry allows an orgy of self-indulgence, senseless consumerism, and
smugness. David Siegel, the ruler of the empire, brags about his clandestine
role in getting Bush elected President; he creates a glitzy tower in Las Vegas
to signal his success, and he aspires to build the largest private home in the
US to flaunt that success. Siegel embodies Marx’s infamous iconic capitalist:
“… The less you eat, drink, and buy books; the less you go to the theater, the
dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint,
fence, etc, the more you save—the greater becomes your treasure which
neither moths nor dust will devour—your capital.”
But as Marx acknowledges, your abstinence and single-minded greed is rewarded,
for your accumulated wealth can “appropriate art, learning, the treasures of
the past, political power…” And Siegel does all of this.

But the 2008 economic
collapse brings the Siegel family to its knees. Dead, unattended pets; dog
feces on carpets; fast food; cranky, spoiled children; and sullenness and
self-pity replace the former swagger. “It’s the banks, the rotten, greedy
banks,” the Siegels exclaim. They angrily protest that “ordinary” people like
themselves are victimized by selfish bankers.

As the empire totters,
the Siegels scramble to adjust. On a visit to her childhood friends, wife
Jackie must subject her children to their first flight on a commercial airline.
“Why are these other people on our plane?” they wonder. Jackie asks the rental
car agent for the name of the driver; he responds with a puzzled look. The rich
are not like the rest of us.

Through their
“ordeal,” David Siegel sulks, whines, and wallows in self-pity. While Jackie’s
untamed consumerism remains pathological, she shows more character and resilience,
serving as both the family’s anchor and morale-booster. This snap shot of the
very wealthy in full bloom and under duress shows the shallowness of that life
choice and the ugliness of conspicuous self-aggrandizement. It is hard to feel
sympathy for the Siegels.

Searching
for Sugarman

If the Siegels
conjure contempt, even disgust, Sixto Rodriguez—the focus of the documentary, Searching for Sugarman—counts as a
glorious expression of the best of us. Rodriguez, a discarded cultural worker,
exudes nobility, humility, warmth, and intelligence, whether working in small,
marginal clubs, laboring on excavation or demolition sites, raising his
children, or enjoying a belated celebrity.

Others have written
of his strange, magical journey from a quickly emerging and falling talent
forty years ago to the re-discovered celebrity of today. In between, Rodriguez
worked and raised his children like millions of others, but with uncommon
dignity and strength. The film, Sugarman,
attests to the man’s resilience, but also celebrates his incredible impact upon
others.

Unmistakably,
Rodriguez, himself a former autoworker and the son of an immigrant Mexican
autoworker, is a legacy of the US multi-national working class—a living example
of the best of working class values. He, like his co-workers interviewed in the
film, has an unassuming intellect and unqualified respect for others.

And he and his music
are consummately “political.” Not in any clumsy or preachy sense, but in a way
that speaks to and for the disadvantaged, that resonates with those who seek
change. Early in his career he associated in Detroit with John Sinclair, the
political commissar of the proto-proletarian-punk group, the MC5. Later, when
his music arrived in Australia, he opened in live performances for Australia’s
most widely known politically outspoken rock group, Midnight Oil.

But the greatest
testament to his strong politics is the curious and bizarre impact on South
African youth. After Angolan independence at the end of 1975, South Africa
intensified its military interventions in that country and Namibia. Over the
next decade, conscription of white South Africans into the military met further
and further resistance. For reasons that remain obscure, the music of
Rodriguez, commercially a flop in the US, found a following in South Africa.
Rodriguez became the voice of resistance and change for many young, white South
Africans. His music created the sound track for the anti-conscription movement.
And by the mid-eighties he inspired other musical groups to propel the End
Conscription Campaign. The Kalahari Surfers, Cherry Faced Lurchers, and other
alternative musical groups gave expression to disenchanted white youth (see Forces Favourites, Rounder Records,
1986). The resounding defeat of the South African military by the Angolan
military and its Cuban internationalist ally, the growing militancy of the
African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, and the
disenchantment of white South Africans brought apartheid to its knees and paved
the way to South African liberation.

In a real way, this
modest worker in Detroit helped rock the foundations of the racist, repressive
apartheid system in South Africa-- quite an accomplishment for an artist
without recognition in his homeland. Quite an achievement for a talent
initially crushed by the gears of an industry driven by immediacy and profit.

Where The Queen of Versailles drains the spirit with its celebration of
accumulation and ostentation, Searching
for Sugarman brings joy and inspiration. Both are revealing. Watch them
both, one after the other. Hang your head in embarrassment with the decadence
that the unbridled capitalist system has wrought. Raise your head with hope for
the nobility that people like Rodriguez bring to us.

Monday, March 4, 2013

If it seems like I’m
picking on the United Auto Workers union, it’s only because its
descent from its once lofty, exemplary stature as one of the most
democratic and militant CIO unions has been the steepest. Last month,
I wrote of the leadership’s complicity in the gutting of union wage
and benefit standards, a gutting that has left starting wages often
lower than for their non-union counterparts. I reported that UAW
contracts were pressuring management at non-union Toyota to buy out
older workers in order to establish a new, lower starting wage to
compete with their unionized competitors. UAW union contracts are now
the corporate tool for slashing labor costs!But it’s even worse
than I thought. A retired autoworker pointed out that my claim of
two-tier employment at UAW shops was incomplete. At Ford, the UAW has
acceded to a three-tier system! Below the “entry” level tier,
Ford, with UAW agreement, has established a classification of “long
term supplemental” that offers the $14-16 entry-level starting
wage, but with no job security or benefits! In some suburban, high-
income areas, fast food restaurants offer better wages and benefits
than this! Labor Notes
Ken Paff reports on a shameful act of treachery against workers
employed at a car-hauling company under a Teamster contract. As
revealed by a National Labor Relations Board decision, Ford colluded
with a UAW local to underbid the Teamster contract and award the work
to a lower-paying competitor. The NLRB administrative law judge
ordered the voiding of the UAW contract and the re-employment of the
laid-off workers with full back pay. According to the decision, Ford
arranged the sub-standard contract with the UAW beforehand to secure
a lower bid. As a result, the Teamster members who had made about $20
an hour were replaced with workers employed under a UAW contract at
$11-14 per hour. According to a leaked document, the collusion would
save Ford $9.8 million a year. This sorry deal was known to the top
union leadership.Treachery of this
dimension transcends class collaboration and business unionism and
sinks to the level of scabbing. Those who gave their lives to
organize the UAW must be turning in their graves. Their legacy
deserves much better than this insult to labor solidarity.

Currency
War

Why is the escalation
of the global currency war by the Abe government in Japan
significant?Until now, the leaders
of all of the leading capitalist countries have proclaimed open and
unrestrained trade—free markets—as a mark of a new level of
international cooperation. They have advertised the dramatic growth
of international trade as establishing bonds of mutual dependence
that strengthen relations and lessen tensions.But these
“interdependencies” were tenuous at best. They temporarily
concealed the ever compelled, inevitable drive for competitive
advantage, to win at the expense of competitors. Cooperation is alien
to a system—capitalism—based upon ever greater accumulation. A
deepening crisis quickly surfaced these tendencies. It was not the Abe
government that opened the currency wars, but the US. The doses of
“quantitative easing” adopted by the US Federal Reserve cheapened
the dollar, making US exports more attractive and foreign imports
less so. As a result, there was a marked revival of US manufacturing.
In short, US policy makers broke with international cooperation and
set out on the road to securing national advantage. The first to feel the
bite from this unilateral policy were many economies in Latin
America. Despite the justifiable complaint of their leaders, US
investment money flooded these markets, disrupting capital markets,
and attacking their exports. Two years ago, Brazil lodged loud
complaints against US quantitative easing and its negative impact on
Brazilian exports.Other countries, like
the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and Israel, have acted to protect
their currencies, while Australian manufacturing has been seriously
slowed because it has refrained from reacting.The already seriously
wounded EU economy has been further disrupted by the currency wars,
with the European Central Bank reluctant to retaliate. Germany, with
its manufacturing largely immune to price competition, has
successfully blocked any strong reaction. The rest of the EU has
consequently felt the loss of competitiveness.It was the Abe
government in Japan that brought this escalating contest into the
open. Their explicit determination to weaken the yen served as the
basis for Abe’s election campaign. Despite a frantic
attempt to get some agreement among the G7 powers, the battle only
promises to become more aggressive and destructive. The Brazilian
Finance Minister was recently quoted in The
Wall Street Journal:
“The currency war has become more explicit now because trade
conflicts have become sharper. Countries are trying to devalue their
currencies because of falling global trade. So many of them are in a
difficult situation.”The tensions emerging
in the currency war are leading to sharp military confrontations and
threats, especially among Asian Pacific countries. The capitalist
sharks are turning on each other.

Here
We Go Again!

Signs are eerily
pointing toward developments reminiscent of the 2008 crash. Once
again an enormous pool of capital is accumulating and overflowing
into riskier and riskier areas to find a return. As reported in the
WSJ,
$149 billion has channeled into money market funds since November of
2012. The Journal
notes that these funds are increasingly accepting risk (for example,
French bank debt) to secure better returns.Cash is also flooding
equity markets. In only four weeks in the New Year, $38.1 billion was
invested in stock mutual funds, more than the previous record in
February, 2000 (remember that moment?).

A
recent bank of charts published in the WSJ
tellingly
demonstrates the many signs of an overheated, dangerously speculative
economy:

● Issuance
of high-yield corporate bonds below investment grade is nearly double
what it was in 2007.

● Business
loans not required to meet traditional standards have risen sharply
(though still well below

2007).

● Total
assets in US high-yield, junk bond funds and exchange traded funds
are more than double what

they
were in 2007.

● Iowa farmland
prices are more than double what they were in 2007.As if there were not
enough danger signs in the global economy, another over-accumulation
event approaches. Hold on to your hats!